Saturday, September 30, 2017

All Hands Meeting - September 2017

A very warm welcome to our two newest members, Carlo Chung and Paul Rainville, who both joined Squadron 188 in July!

Summer is clearly a busy period for Squadron 188. Once again, over the last couple of months, members volunteered a lot of precious time to participate in missions and events and to invest energy to renew ratings and continue their professional development. Congratulations – and thank you – to everyone.

Squadron members celebrating our squadron's second Unit Citation Award with a toast.

Missions
In August/September we were called for missions in California, Texas (hurricane Harvey) and Florida (sort of)...unfortunately, we were only able to actually help out with those in California!

According to Capt Stevulak, the ELT was reported by incoming aircraft to Oakland airport. “We launched flight from Livermore with pilot Chris Suter. We received permission from Oakland tower to fly over runways. Clouds covered the area, so using the Becker and GPS, we determined signal was somewhere north of the runways. I radioed information to ground team and returned back to Livermore.”

This has to be one of our quickest finds: total flight time was 0.6 hrs! Congratulations to Capt Coreas, Capt Stevulak, Lt Chavez and Lt Roberts for earning a Find!

CAP-USAF/TXWG DR mission to support Hurricane Harvey efforts, with Capt Hayes (Resources), 1st Lt Choate, 1st Lt Hollerbach and 1st Lt Kraus responding to the call from CAWG and making themselves available, but ultimately not being deployed

30-31 Jul Brian Lloyd [Project Amelia Earhart] landed KOAK on his around the world trip and was met by Lt Col Tinnirello and SM Sharma and given a tour of the squadron

According to Lt Col Tinnirello, “on Monday July 31, Brian Lloyd landed at the Oakland airport, North field, to complete the 80th anniversary of the attempted flight to go around the world by Amelia Earhart. The last leg from Hawaii to Oakland took him about 14 hrs. Waiting for his arrival late in the evening were a mere five people! Senior member Sharma, two other pilots from an Oakland flight club, his girlfriend from Texas and myself. After the long trip from Hawaii, Brian was very hungry, so I took him and his girlfriend to a restaurant for some dinner and finally to the Motel where they had reservations. The next day, Brian came to visit our squadron building and had the opportunity to visit Amelia Earhart’s room, where Amelia used to stay every time she came to Oakland to start some historic flight.”

According to 1st Lt Spears, "the location was Farewell Bend State Recreation Area, Huntington Oregon near Boise ID, right in the Snake River. Going to the eclipse was an amazing experience. Although I had done a lot of reading ahead of time and thought I knew what to expect, seeing the eclipse in real life, with the black spot with a bright corona in a noon-time darkness with sunset all around was one of the truly awe-inspiring moments I will remember for the rest of my life."

1st Lt Hollerbach: Achievement Award (for her work on the February 2017 AP DREX) and Cadet Specialty Activity Ribbon (for participation in NESA)

SM Fogle: Membership Ribbon for completion of Level I

SM Mello: Membership Ribbon for completion of Level I

SM Rainville: Membership Ribbon for completion of Level I

Upcoming Events

Capt Matthew Gast: Glider assistance.

"On Saturday Sept 9, there will be Orientation Rides (O Rides) for cadets. Help from Seniors is required to fill the several positions to conduct a Safe and fund operation. Also, at the same time O Rides can take place with powered aircraft. [From the editor: since I'm slow in posting this blog, a blog of the glider event was already posted earlier this month!)

On Saturday, Sept 16, I will conduct flight instruction. This can be also a lot of fun and record the training in your flightlog. For both dates we can use help with transporting cadets, glider ground handling and log keeping."

Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with more than 61,000 members nationwide. CAP, in its Air Force auxiliary role, performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 113 lives in fiscal year 2010. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the more than 26,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs. CAP has been performing missions for America for 69 years. It is the largest sponsor annually of Wreaths Across America, an initiative to remember, honor and teach about the sacrifices of U.S. military veterans. For more information on Civil Air Patrol, visit www.gocivilairpatrol.com or www.capvolunteernow.com.

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